Respawning members are not afraid to admit that many of us are not huge sports friends, most of us barely like sport at all but with the release of Fifa 19 today we have a look at our favourite sports games – or the ones we just love to shit on!
Clarissa
I’ve played a hand full of sports games, quite literally. Mario and sonic at the Olympics, Wii sports and uhhh does Just dance count??? I love these games for their family playability, I like them because they pretty much encourage me and my family to get up and look stupid. I mean what could be more ridiculous than two grown adults aggressively shaking a Wii remote whilst shouting at the bright cartoon characters on the screen. I’ve never really much understood FIFA…. from the outside, it just looks like the same game being made every year….but with new characters. I’m sure its more nuanced than that though.
Ben
Fuck Fifa. Fuck Madden. Fuck NBA. I don’t care about those games, if you’ve been paying any attention to anything that I write, you know that I enjoy racing games a lot. So my favourite sports game is going to be a racing game. F1 2018. This game is a masterpiece. The feeling of the cars is the best it has ever been. There are more races in the game which means more fun. The media have been reintroduced, and answers you give can and will affect the way the parts for your car are being developed and will also affect the moral of your Pit Team. Not only is this game great fun to play, it looks incredible. I can easily say that it is my favourite game so far this year.
Josef
Well shit if it ain’t the best EA game ever released. Skate 2 is one of the kings of my childhood. I had a great phase in the last generation where we just tended to play skateboarding games. There was the Skate 2 demo and Tony Hawks. Both of these were just a ton of fun to play around with and explore. The environments were crafted specifically with an imaginative teenager to mess around with. I used to play the demo for Skate 2 all the time on repeat, just exploring the tiniest area because it was just so fun. When Skate 3 came out I was beyond satisfied. It continued that fabulous skateboarding experience and allows you to just fuck around more. You can still get this on Xbox One backwards compatibility so I recommend you go out and buy Skate 3 right now.
Javier
Fiiiiiiifa….Fifa is still my favourite sports game of all time, and probably one of the only sports games I actually play. And it’s still one of my favourite, coop/couch coop games ever. It helps that I have an active interest in football as the career modes, tournaments etc. have an amazing feel in these games. When I was younger I was so awful at Fifa but luckily a good friend of mine spent hours playing it with me until got gud. I’m no expert but I’d say I could give most a good game. Saying that I’m unsure if I’ll be buying this year’s installment…
The other game that sprang to mind is Disney’s extreme skate for PS2. My god this was a great game. It was a basic cheap knock off of Tony Hawks but with Disney characters and awesome little missions. My personal favourite was the Toy Story levels. I genuinely recommend this game for a bit of fun. (is this a sports game o_0 )…
Will
Sports games? Really? That’s what we’re talking about?
I can honestly say that if there’s any genre of video games I don’t even think of touching, it’s the FIFAs and the NBAs of the world.
It’s a genre soaked in poor industry practices that has caused so much grief for the art form as a whole it’s obscene. Make no mistake, FIFA is responsible for the entire lootbox-crazed, always-online, re-hashed re-released mess that is the industry today. It’s a genre lacking any warmth or artistic merit and it’s infuriating how much people put up with to buy and play the exact same game every single year.
Chris
I don’t play many sport games, but I’ve always had a thing for boxing and wrestling titles; used to play some Fight Night on the Xbox 360, and always made time for the WWE games. Both series had a good mix of customisation, and very visceral, personal gameplay. Creating a fighter, training him up, and helping him win matches and titles was loads of fun. The WWE games – especially the last I played, 2K17 – had a really engaging story aspect to them too; fleshed out the gameplay, and made your character feel a lot more integrated into the depicted world.
That being said, one thing that does bother me with sports titles is how they are often removed from digital storefronts after time – yeah, sure, you can always play ‘the new one’ in a series, but what if you have a particular fondness for an older title, or the new one has changes you aren’t fond of? I think that these titles should still be made available for purchase instead of being decidedly culled when the next one comes out.